


Turn Back Time (to the good old days)

by TheWonderWorm



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Eventual Romance, F/M, M/M, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWonderWorm/pseuds/TheWonderWorm
Summary: Nico di Angelo is a fighter.But sometimes, battles cannot be won with swords and arrows, or even cautious words. No, some battles are lost before they are halfway through. Sometimes you need to go back to the start - before mistakes were made, before people died, to make things right.And that's just what Nico plans to do.
Relationships: Bianca di Angelo & Nico di Angelo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

The silence is deafening, although he knows it is only a matter of time before it is broken.

A howling wind whips through the dampened cave he finds himself in, angry, fierce, determined. It reminds him of people - his friends, his _family_ \- long since passed.

_A girl, long brown hair tied back in a braid, dark eyes wide and curious, gaze strong, protective. A stubborn smile dancing on her lips. Her green hat the only thing holding wild wisps of her back from her mischievous face._

_"Nico," she would have said, softly, lovingly, "it's not your fault, it wasn't your failures that brought this upon us. It could_ never _be."_

But it was. It was, it was, it was.

He thinks of another girl, younger, but as much of a sister to him as the first.

 _He had first found her, in the Fields, young, numb, skin pallid and greyed, very much_ dead. _But she had been a hero. She had sacrificed herself for her mother, back then. And she would have sacrificed herself to save her friends, too. Her family. The world. And she did. She had._

_The last time he had seen her, she had smiled at him, blood on her lips, her gentle gold eyes dancing with affection._

_"I believe in you Nico. Your quest is just as important as ours. You won’t fail. I_ know _it."_

And it had been, hadn't it?

But, like always, he had messed up.

He remembers his third sister. She had been related to him by neither blood nor adoption, but she had taught him so much. _So goddamn much._

_"Blood does not make a family, Nico._

_"You are as much my brother as Hylla is_ _my sister."_

_She had died then, blood bubbling on her lips, a single tear trickling from the corner of her dark, dark eye, so fierce and firm and strong and steadfast._

_And then fractured. A crystal sphere shattered on the ground._

_Empty. His heart, his soul, his_ life.

_Dead._

And her death had been his fault.

(his fault his fault his fault)

He should have run faster, fought harder, been better. But he hadn't.

And they had all paid the price.

And so now he hides.

Alone.

The walls of his cave are damp, wet - a waste of water in a poisoned, burned out land. They drip perpetually, and the air is perfumed with the invasive stench of mildew and mold. It is large, and empty and horribly, _horribly_ cold.

(cold as her hand had been in his as she died, died, died)

Colder than the feeling of fading away; in the good old days when all he had to worry about was shadow travel and overusing his powers. And maybe multiple wars. And the uprising of Titans. And keeping the secret of two demigod camps from each other. And his sister’s secret. And unrequited love.

But at least he didn't have to worry about the hunt.

Led by Orion, the fabled male Hunter, disgraced after falling in love with the goddess of maidens. He had hunted Nico, and Reyna, as they desperately tried to carry the Athena Parthenos back to camp. But he had caught them early on. Too early.

_Reyna's death... his fault. (his fault his fault his fault)_

_The shadows had called to him, then, and he had succumbed. The Athena Parthenos lost to the shadows as he had been. He had been useless in the fighting - little more than a wraith, insubstantial and barely visible. He had only flickered back to life_ after _-_

He flinched, memories tumbling over each other, each somehow more painful than the agonising last.

(his fault his fault his fault)

He shook his head. _No._

He had to be clear-minded before he left his cave, his only sanctuary. Or in his grief he would be eaten _alive._

Neither demigods nor mortals, nor even _gods_ survived a chance meeting with Orion.

He didn't have to worry about the gods, in the old days, either.

But nowadays, if he sees one, they're fighting, they’re close to death, or decaying and rotting and -

No.

Nico shoulders his makeshift bow, casually sheathing his Stygian iron sword. He tosses a bone-white dagger in his right hand and thinks of food. Of warmth. Of _safety._

He steps into the shadows.

He is insubstantial, weightless.

In the darkness, (the warm, welcoming darkness), he hears the whisperings of angry spirits, the pleas of forgotten souls, he hears voices calling him, calling his name, _help us Nico, help us, help us, step into to the darkness, submit to the shadows, like you did not so long ago… and wasn’t it so easy?_ He hears voices like those of his friends, _come on, Death Breath, Nico? Is that you? Help me, help me, help me - help_ us.

And then, through the war of words, like a battle cry, a desperate call to arms, he hears his name, spoken with purpose, meaning, _truth:_

_Nico!_

One of the voices is clearer than the rest. Familiar, too.

He follows it, through the shifting dark, to its source.

He pauses for a second, surveying the flickering of the dying fire before him. A man stands tall, proud, his piercing blue eyes cutting through the shadows, as if trying to burn a hole right into his soul.

"Lord Hermes." Nico bows his head to the god, but Hermes waves an airy, scarred hand towards him.

"There is no need for formalities, son of Hades. Not anymore.

"The power of the gods is waning. The Titans are growing ever stronger, and you - _you!_ \- are the most powerful demigod left. The _only_ powerful demigod left. The gods need your help. You are the only one who can save us."

Nico can't help but let out a weak, hysterical laugh. It's pathetic, isn't it? The gods can only put aside their pride and help when the darkness has proved itself strong enough to conquer - to kill - even them.

 _He remembers fighting by the side of the goddess of home - the hearth. The only immortal - the only_ person _to see him for who he truly was. A scared kid who just wanted a_ home _. Someone to love him again._ _He remembers seeing her fall, her last wish for him to survive, move on, make things alright again,_ please. _For_ me.

"Are you the last god, then?" he asks, his tone light, but conveying a deeper message - _have the Titans really regained so much power? Is there really nothing we can do, now, to stop them?_

As if in answer to his non-verbal question, Hermes nods his head, solemn.

(solemn as the decaying daisies Nico had lain upon her grave)

"I … I am … the last of my, my … my siblings. The only god to stand in the way of," and here his voice drops to a whisper, reverent, fearful, everything a god should never be, "the Earth Mother's reign. She has come after me before.” He raises a scarred hand before Nico’s face, and his eyes follow the countless lacerations, like a myriad gruesome roads paving the way over the map of his skin. Curving, _red._

(rivers of blood run down the demigod’s face like the water he once controlled)

“She is so powerful,” Hermes continues, his voice barely above a whisper, angry, defiant.

(so, so scared)

"I doubt I will last the week."

Nico looks around at the land they stand on. Brown grass, and dust, broken fences, corpses (the mortals never stood a chance) strewn across the baked ground. He looks to the sky, broken, red and orange and angry, green clouds of acid and filth and plague melting across the horizon. He looks to the sea, not far from where he stands, raging, a sickly grey-green.

(like his eyes in his final, lingering moments)

(at his death)

He turns. Sees twelve cabins in varying states of decay behind him. The bare bones of the smaller cabins, weaker, which could not withstand the destruction rained upon them.

"Camp... Camp Half-Blood?"

(screaming, crying, _please save us, please help us, she’s risen, oh my gods, the seven are dead_ , and the bodies, of children no older than eight or nine, of teens who never got to experience life - a first kiss, a first date, never got to discover who they were, explore their sexualities, make friends, have fun, love, laugh)

( _live._ )

Nico’s voice is filled with horror, with fear, with all the worst of human emotion. Because although he had never stayed for long, never _wanted_ to stay for long...

Camp Half-Blood was his home.

The other campers had been his huge, dysfunctional family. He may not have liked many of them, and most of them had actively _avoided_ him…

( _my children are so rarely happy_ )

( _i would like you to be an exception_ )

But he had felt safe there.

"Nico," a gentle hand on his shoulder interrupts his line of thinking. "If you agree...

"I can help you fix it. Change it."

"What?" Nico asks, face twisting into an incredulous frown, his eyes suspiciously wet. "No. You can't. They're dead. All of them. I felt their souls dissipate into nothing, their consciousnesses fade for eternity. I felt them die, without _honour, screaming_ in pain, and yet be refused a burial. I felt them be _devoured_ by _monsters,_ their final moments a _thousand years_ of pain.

"What part of you makes you think you - or me - can fix _anything?"_

Hermes removes the hand from his shoulder.

"You know, in the good old days, you would have been struck down for speaking to me like that."

His voice is mild, unconcerned, despite the levity of the situation, somehow _joking._

(just like the boy who had ridden his bronze dragon into the sky, hoping to save his friends, his family, _the world_ )

(and died, painfully)

(unremarkably)

(fire had been his downfall, contradictory to the end)

"But," Hermes continued, "I am not lying. I am the god of roads, of trade. The god of commerce and inventions and thieves. And I am the god of _travel._

"And not just physical.

“Time is not linear. Instead, it is like a tapestry. The socks the Fates knitted were never entirely metaphorical. Time can be designed, planned, _destined_ and woven... yet also unthreaded, picked apart and remade, rewritten. Time is a road, quite unlike most others, but it is a road nonetheless.

"And I can send you back down it."


	2. Chapter 2

Nico woke abruptly. The sound of rushing water nearly masked the whispering of a voice in his ear, and he felt a strange sense of _wrongness,_ of not quite life, but more souls than he could imagine even _existing_ in the other timeline. “It _worked!_ ” His joy was irrepressible, until he opened his eyes to see a face he had hoped (childishly, foolishly, he had hoped) (they all had) he would never see again.

“Get up, master.”

(and in the end, the remaining had obeyed)

(it was all they could do)

He did not want to move, caught up in painful memories as he was. Jagged rocks shifted beneath him as he sat up, wincing, only to see an undesirable figure cast in flickering relief by a campfire. The blue flames did little to hide his identity. _Minos._

(risen from tartarus, he wanted revenge)

Hiding a flinch, he rose from the riverbank, a strange sense of nostalgia flooding through him, to crouch before the fire. Being back in the Underworld after its destruction was like travelling seventy years into the future without warning. Jarring, terrifying and so, so

Lonely.

Isolating.

(alone in the cold darkness of a jar)

(dying)

(and then _light_ )

He drew his worn aviator's jacket around him (he had missed it so much, all its tears, all its stains, all its _memories_ ) and looked to the dead king, desperately trying to place _when_ he was.

And then - “I know that which you seek, master, and it cannot be done while you still rely on those _idiotic cards_ for comfort.”

Nico did flinch, this time, remembering the game he had spent so much of his childhood playing that it had become a comfort for him in the future.

(playing with his sister’s boyfriend on the battlefields after _Her_ rise)

(stupid arguments over hit points and stats)

(and then, no longer)

(the shape-changer was gone)

( _forever_ )

He reached deep into his soul for strength, and, with a heavy heart, reached into his jacket (his beloved jacket), and pulled out his last remaining cards, playing the role he had written for himself so many years ago, so many centuries back. The role he _had_ to play for the Great Prophecy to come to pass as it should. The role he had to play in this moment, so that Percy could know what he was doing. See what he was becoming.

A shimmering started in his peripheral. He tried his best to ignore it.

“Useless,” Nico muttered, steadfastly blinking away tears. “I can’t believe I ever liked this stuff. I was so naive. Childish. And now Bianca is dead. I’ve _failed_.” His voice was a monotone; he could barely bring himself to feel as he tossed the cards into the flames. “There’s no way to get her back.”

And then the voice of the ghost he had grown to despise so much: “a childish game indeed, master,” and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Minos as he continued with his hard-hearted response. “You could never be man enough to bring her back. It is your failings - and only _yours_ \- that leave your sister beyond reach.”

Nico turned towards Minos, schooling his expression into one of doubt and cautious hope. “There must be a way then. You can guide me so that I do not fail. Speak.”

Minos moved closer, a wisp of shadowy blue. “It has never been done. But there may be a way.”

“Tell me,” Nico commanded, letting a fierce, mad glint slip into his gaze, hiding his disgust, distaste, _distrust_. “Tell me _now_.”

As Minos explained, Nico interjected now and again, keeping his actions and responses as close to the way they had been the first time round.

(when he was young)

(when Akhlys could bear to watch his burden)

(when she had relished in his misery)

(before looking into his mind had driven even the goddess of misery to madness)

(to death)

Shaking off the memory - a vision? the future? - Nico turned away from the king, towards the shimmering, and let a single tear trace the curve of his grimy cheek. “Very well. You have a plan, then?”

“Oh, yes,” the ghost’s voice was a smidgeon too pleased to simply be concerned for Nico’s welfare. Nico could scarcely believe how foolish he had been to trust a man such as Minos. But that had been years ago. He was much more accustomed to reading people - ghosts? gods? - now. He tuned back into Minos’ plan as he began to mention the labyrinth. _Daedalus._

Even now, he wished for a way to see his elder sister again. _Bianca. A soul for a soul._

(her floppy green hat covering her eyes)

( _she chose rebirth_ )

(rebirth, over _you_ )

His McDonalds was just as sleepy as he remembered it. He’d been coming - no, he had _been_ \- to it every fortnight or so since he had run from Camp Half Blood, in the first timeline. Its location was perfect, and the tired employees had never objected when he asked to raise the dead in the parking lot. In fact, they tended towards amusement.

On second thought - second life? - the feigned amusement probably wasn’t as feigned as his younger self had liked to believe.

(he had seen them, in visions, once)

(seen their deaths)

(as mortals)

(insignificant and alone)

( _screaming_ )

(the blood had clashed horribly with their unifo-)

 _No._ He willed the memories away, stepping up to the counter with the little confidence he could muster with Minos waiting in the parking lot for him. _Invisible._ He hated the way Minos made him feel so small from such a distance. How he still made him feel so powerless, despite all he had been through. The way -

“Your order?” a quiet voice cut through his internal monologue. He had never seen this McDonalds employee, despite having come to the same store on the same day at the same time in his last life.

He surveyed her, briefly. She had her brown hair swept into a messy updo beneath her cap, and her eyes glinted a warm red, and, once he had given her his order - “one Happy Meal, please, ma’am, with a Coke on the side” - and paid in cash - “your parents anywhere nearby?” - and he had nodded frantically enough to account for all the frantic nodding in the world - “yes, ma’am, just out the door,” and she had handed him his order, he mustered up the courage to ask her name.

(asking a child to identify a corpse)

(she didn’t recognise it)

(no one could)

(not anymore)

With a gentle smile, she slipped out from behind the counter, changing form to one he knew better. A form he last remembered blanketed in red.

“My lady.” Nico dropped to one knee and knelt before the young girl.

(how do we go on, without a hearth?)

(without a family?)

(without a _home_?)

“You should know by now there is no need to bow.”

Nico did not move. He couldn’t look up at her for fear of seeing red tracing her face, her arms, her chest. Red instead of gold. He was afraid (so afraid) that nothing had changed. That it had all been a dream.

“Child.” Hestia reached a soft hand beneath his chin, and raised his head, so that his shining eyes were level to hers. “You saw me when others did not, and now, I see you. Your future is wreathed in shadow, your soul surrounded with a red aura of wrongness and of death.

“I have only one thing to ask of you, child. Just how bad was it?”

He looked away, the water in his eyes condensing to tears that slowly traced their way downwards, eroding rivers and tributaries through the grime covering his cheeks. He drew a hand across his eyes, his traitorous, _childish_ eyes, angry at his reaction to Hestia’s gentle words. Despite his youthful facade, his eyes were weary, ancient, as he replied to the goddess.

(don’t go don’t go don’t leave me please)

(don’t leave me alone)

“Bad.” His single word, his _broken_ answer, was a severe understatement, but Nico could not bring himself to elaborate. “My lady, I must go. If I do not hurry, Minos may grow suspicious.”

Hestia nodded thoughtfully. “The less people - beings - who know what you have done, the better. Keep your cards close to your chest, Nico.” At her use of his name, Nico’s tears slowed, his eyes drying at her recognition of respect. “Do not change too much,” she continued. “I fear for our future if you do.”

(future?)

(we have no future.)

(only war)

“This parking lot just won’t _work_ , master.”

Minos’ proclamation caused Nico to groan. Hestia had left - vanished, really - leaving Nico to wander out to join Minos in the diner’s parking, and he was really regretting not just shadow-travelling away from his manipulative mentor.

The lot was old and cracked, faded white lines marking parking spaces barely visible in the evening gloom. “What do you suggest we do then, oh _wise spirit_ of eternal optimism?” Nico’s reply seemed to throw Minos off, before the spirit shook his head.

“Back to the labyrinth, master. We should travel to the ranch as soon as possible.”

Nico nodded his acquiescence. Geryon’s Ranch was vital to Percy’s - and the other demigods - perception of him. He could change the events of the ranch no more than he could change Luke’s manipulation by, and then eventual victory against Kronos, despite how much he despised the way he had acted in his past life.

“Leave me, Minos. I can find my way.” At Nico’s command, Minos nodded, albeit reluctantly, disappearing to wherever he went when he wasn’t tricking Nico into performing for him like a circus pony. The boy breathed a sigh of relief and closed his eyes, sinking into the shadows the way he had learned so long ago, in another life.

Another world.

_To the Labyrinth. To the future._

**Author's Note:**

> Just by the way (if anyone's even reading this), updates are going to be irregular, extremely sporadic at best (sorry 'bout that), um yeah, I guess enjoy (and feel free to give feedback - I'd really like some constructive criticism, please.)


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